Taxing Americans to protect — and occupy — the Europeans

Advocates of Big Government are forever creative in concocting new justifications for old programs. Supporters of more military spending are no different. One of the most unique arguments is that a bigger Pentagon budget is necessary to simultaneously protect and suppress the Europeans.

By no serious measure can U.S. military outlays be seen as inadequate. In real terms the U.S. spends twice what it did a decade ago and more than it did at any time during the Cold War, Korean War, or Vietnam War. Washington’s expenditures are roughly as much as those of the rest of the world. America dominates the globe more thoroughly than any previous power, including the Roman and British Empires.

Nevertheless, the neoconservative lobby wants even greater military spending. Proposals to cut America’s lavish military outlays trigger screams of horror. Imagine what would happen if the U.S. only accounted for, say, 40 or 35 percent of the globe’s military spending. Imagine if America’s navy was only equivalent to the next 10 instead of 13 navies. Imagine if Washington relied on its allies instead of allowing them to always rely on it. The horror!

Why Americans should forever subsidize its wealthy, industrialized friends is hard to understand. But analysts at the Heritage Foundation have developed a truly unique argument regarding Europe. In their view, the U.S. must simultaneously subsidize and suppress the European continent.

The Heritage Foundation’s Sally McNamara warns that cutting U.S. force levels in Europe “would gut Washington’s defensive and deterrent capabilities, undermine America’s commitments to its European allies, irretrievably damage the NATO alliance, and ultimately harm American strategic interests.” That’s quite a claim after so many Europeans spent so many years treating their militaries and NATO with casual disdain, doing little to create effective armed services capable of fighting real wars. It would make more sense to question Europe’s commitment to its American ally.

Virtually every European nation has been reducing military outlays in recent years, a trend reinforced by the 2008 financial crisis. Most European states have only reluctantly contributed to the mission in Afghanistan, and only then by sending troops to where they weren’t needed. Even Great Britain, Washington’s most serious military partner, is planning potentially substantial cuts in its military. Just who is failing to demonstrate their support for the trans-Atlantic alliance?

Not that this should come as a surprise. The alliance was created in the midst of the Cold War, when war-torn, demoralized Western Europeans faced a Soviet Union which was steadily expanding its control over Eastern Europe. Even then the Europeans routinely under-invested in defense. After all, the U.S. was protecting them. For years European leaders would pledge to meet NATO spending targets and then welsh on their promises, explaining that they had domestic needs to meet, political opposition to overcome, and economic problems to resolve.

Today, facing serious economic rather than security threats, the Europeans are even less inclined to devote money to their militaries and to use those militaries in real combat. For years ambitious European statesmen have discussed developing a separate international identity and creating an independent military capability, but the result remains little more than talk. EU “President” Herman Van Rompuy and “Foreign Minister” Catherine Ashton battle mightily with each other as well as the European Parliament and European Commission over who has authority over what, yet the EU has done nothing to cause anyone outside of the continent to take the organization seriously as a political let alone military entity.

For 65 years Americans have generously paid for Europe’s defense. It is time to terminate the free, or at least very cheap, ride. The U.S. faces an annual federal budget deficit of $1.3 trillion, a national debt of $13.5 trillion, and total unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare of some $100 trillion. Ending military welfare for Europe — which possesses a larger economy and population than America — is the least Washington can do under the circumstances.